00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappin here from Golf Monthly and welcome to Wentworth Club and the first in a
00:04special three-part series in which we've got three normal amateur golfers and we're going to give
00:10them to Nick Doherty for the day to see whether Nick can help them play better golf. So we're
00:15here at Wentworth and we're going to head out onto the west course, they're going to play
00:18three holes with Nick and then they're going to get some individual one-on-one lesson time
00:22to see what advice Nick can offer them to help them shoot lower scores. So our first golfer
00:28is a 10-year-old junior who plays off a handicap of nine, very impressive golfer. The question
00:33is how will Nick help him improve? Let's go and find out.
00:47Right Josh, so first question, what's your handicap? I'm off nine. And how long have you been playing
00:54for? Because you're only, what, 10 years old? Yep, so I've been playing since I was two. And I take
00:59it
01:00your handicap has come down pretty quickly this year. So we're filming this in end of September.
01:04What would it have been at the start of the year, do you think? So start of the year, it
01:09was about 14.
01:11Okay. So it's come down quite a lot because of summer and playing a lot of golf. Yeah,
01:16and I've seen you hit the ball quite a bit and I can confirm you hit it very nicely. But
01:20what's,
01:21how's your feeling about where your game is at? What's your strengths? What do you think your
01:24weaknesses are? I think, yeah, golf is good at the moment. I'd say my strength is probably my driving.
01:29I could probably still improve my wedges, chipping and putting. So you're going to have access to
01:34somebody who used to be on the European tour. He's one of the best pundits in the game. What do
01:38you
01:38think you'd like to learn from Nick? What are the questions that you want to answer? Probably a few
01:43questions about being on tour. Oh yeah. I'd say I'm quite interested about that and how hard is it to
01:51get there? Well, it's a very exciting proposition in front of us. Right, let's head out to the golf course.
01:57Okay.
01:57to me, Nick.
02:27We'd have more tees and you're going to make a circle
02:29around. Perfect. Two. A little bit more back swing. Using that bounce is the thing. You throw
02:37more speed at it but you keep using the bounce. Get that foot open. Yeah. Get that knee over
02:42that foot. Nice. That's it. Plenty of power into it. Lovely. What a shot. To go down the
02:52slope. So the only way, so you almost want to feel like you're soft in your knees as
02:55you go down the slope. Yeah. You're back where the rock is the rock rock. So feel that in
03:00there. Look at the nice thing. Step away. Not too close to the ball. Right, Nick. So let's
03:06start with Josh. We firstly played three holes. And what were your first impressions of the
03:12way that Josh hits the ball? He drives it like I wish I did when I was playing on tour.
03:17Phenomenal.
03:18Really great golf swing. Good attitude as well. I think for Josh, the most important stuff
03:24was getting the most out of the skills that he already has. Playing off nine is still immense
03:30at this age and he's progressing nicely. He's going to get naturally bigger and stronger.
03:35So the rest of it should take care of itself. So for him, I think it was a little bit
03:38more
03:39about selection of shots maybe. Maybe a bit more strategy orientated in how he could improve
03:44whilst he just naturally develops in all the other areas.
03:47So what would be the general advice then in terms of strategy? Is there anything in there
03:50that you can offer people that they might be able to take into their own game as well?
03:54I think this is helpful for juniors in particular because we all remember being juniors. Those
03:58of us that have played from a young enough age. When you get to a level where you start
04:02to spin the golf ball, it becomes something that's very addictive. To be fair, it's a
04:09testament to quality of strike and Josh has that. But sometimes it will lead him to play
04:14a more challenging shot than the one he needs to. The name of the game is how many shots did
04:19it take, not how pretty did they look. So I think one of the things with Josh that I wanted
04:23to try and instill was pick something that we could reproduce more regularly with it in
04:30terms of shot selection around the greens. So for that we use the idea of landing it
04:34a set point on the green. Barring something weird going on with the green like the Elephant's
04:38Graveyard at St Andrews, something like that which might influence your shot. Normal green
04:42in front of you. Trying to land it roughly a couple of yards on every time and then using
04:46that landing point then to tell us what sort of shot should we be playing here. So what club.
04:50So wherever that flag is in relation to that landing point will tell us is it tight to it,
04:55in which case it might be the 60 degree or for Josh it'd be a 58. Is it a 50
04:5960 too. If there's a whole load of green to work with, like maybe across the Eleventh
05:03one of the holes we played today, maybe we get down to 9, 8, 7, you know, and have a
05:09nice
05:09simple action, which he does already have. But he was picking a shot that was much more
05:14basic for him. But also you could see when I set him up and again this is something sort
05:17of tapping into things to work on through the winter and stuff. When we made him dial in
05:23on competing to land it in the right place. So competing normally is, did you get it up and
05:27down, you know, whereas we moved it to, can you hit, can you deliver this skill, which
05:32is hitting those landing points. Got it.
05:34Really good. So if he can do that time and time again, he's going to have an electric
05:38short game. And I'd hazard a guess that Josh will shave a ton of strokes off his game by
05:43becoming just really, really effective at the simple stuff around the greens.
05:46Yeah. And what's quite interesting, and I was standing in the background watching all of
05:48this as it took place, is that that element of like having a challenge as you practice, which
05:53is more than just getting up and down, as you say, but actually, can you land it on this tower,
05:56or hit it into this circle on the green. It's something that for a, for a junior golfer
06:00is really going to hopefully engage a little bit more in what you're trying to do.
06:05Practice sucks. You know, it's that, I mean, for, especially for kids, it's the boring bit.
06:09You know, they want to be out there trying to beat their pals, playing in competitions,
06:13but we've got to work at it. You know, that's how we groom these skills. So the best thing
06:18we can do and actually to get the most out of that practice is to make it more performance
06:22orientated, which is what most practice isn't. The most guilty thing I see from amateur golfers
06:28of the way they go about what they do is the way they practice. Really poor. And I've been a
06:32culprit
06:33over the years as well. Scrape hit, scrape hit, scrape hit. You're wasting your time, unless you're
06:38purely grooving a movement. But even still, it should be conscious. You should be engaged with it,
06:43because in the end, you have to engage when you get out here on the golf course. If I take
06:46any amateur,
06:47anywhere in the world and put them on that first tee in the BMW PGA to hit that tee shot,
06:53those feelings, how those arms feel, how they feel inside will feel completely different to if I said,
06:59there's a range, there's no one on it. Here's a couple of hundred balls. Have a good day.
07:02Because bored, almost bored, casual. And sometimes it might not even be good because they're just not
07:07focused at all. But the fact is you do that to prepare for this. If we can bring the pressure
07:13to
07:13the practice and in a fun way as well and create that challenge, then one, it might also shift this
07:19to feeling more like a fun challenge rather than, oh my goodness, I'm terrified the club championships
07:23next week for adults, less so for kids, you know, to being like, this is fun. It's a challenge. And
07:28also you're used to having to do it under a bit of pressure. And that means that then when you
07:33step on
07:33that first tee, there is a comfort in thinking, this isn't as different. Sure, it's different. You know,
07:39just like if I put someone in a position like I have to win on tour or to play in
07:42the Masters or
07:43teared up on the first tee at the Open in your home city, like that would be terrifying and feel
07:47uncomfortable to them. But you get used to it the more you put yourself in that position. So if we're
07:51doing that in our practice, we make the stuff on the course a lot easier. So there you have it.
07:55Some
07:55really simple and effective ways to think about game plan and strategy when you're on the golf course
08:00and also how to practice as well. Some simple advice there for Josh and hopefully for you too,
08:05to help you improve. So there you have it. Some really simple and effective advice from
08:08Nick for Josh on how to improve by building a better strategy and then how to work particularly
08:13on his short game. Obviously, Nick is a player who's been there and who's done it before. And
08:19having that kind of tour player level insight is something that should really help Josh as he
08:24continues to improve his golf game. And hopefully there's some stuff in there that should really
08:28help you as well. That's it for now from Wentworth. Thanks very much for watching. We'll see you next time.
08:38We'll see you next time.
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